Sliver of Light
by larsfarm77
Summary: Adama comes face to face with the reality of Cylon occupied New Caprica. Roslin has been distant since her return this is why. Set after Heroes. Spoilers for late season 2, early season 3.
1. Part 1 Ordeal

Hi there! This is my first ever BSG fanfic. Huge thanks go to my betas Charma101 and the incomparable NerinaB for answering my pleas on LJ. Feedback of any kind is very appreciated . I love to discuss BSG (just ask the folks on the A/R shipper thread on Skiffy), even if it's just about my lack of skill as a writer. Rated M for violence/abuse/angst. And yes, there is a modicum (ahem) of romance. 

Disclaimer: These characters belong to Ron D. Moore, David Eick and the rest of the folks at the Sci Fi Channel. I just took them out to play. In my backyard. I promise to return them soon. No copyright infringement intented or money to be made.

Sliver of Light 

New Caprica Holding Facility 47 days ago

The floor was cold and hard under her bare feet. The chill seeped into her aging joints forcing a dull ache up the length of her legs. She shuddered involuntarily, pressing her face to her knees in an attempt to still her body. Her auburn hair fell forward, cascading down her legs. The thin slip of light from underneath the door to her left did little to purge the blackness that surrounded her.

She'd been there for hours. Nerves now fraying by the minute. She could still see their frightened faces. Her students, just children, watching their teacher pulled from their lesson by a pretty Cylon skin job, the metallic clunk of machines at the tent opening. She had smiled, clamping down hard on the knife's edge of fear that was piercing her insides. Ruffling hair, touching shoulders, she asked the young faces to focus on the lesson that Maya had seamlessly continued as she was pulled from the tent.

They had let her walk unrestrained through the settlement but she could feel the pretty skin job's tall presence at her shoulder. She saw fear, sadness, and empathy cross the faces of the colonists they passed and held her calm. No one saw her fear; she was no longer their leader but the feeling had not left her. She would never be just an educator to these people.

Exhausted she slipped over onto her side on the unforgiving floor. Her hip and shoulder ached instantly where they took the brunt of her weight. Settling her head against her hands she focussed on her breathing, using techniques learned to help her cope with the stress and pain of her cancer. Elosha had been insistent that she learn them. Now the exercises and a bloodied tome were all she had left of the kind cleric. She found strength in those breaths. Peace. But not for long.

The door swung open and struck the jam loudly enough that she was startled awake. Blurry forms stood in the new column of light washing into her cell. She sat up, backing away from them slightly, wishing they'd let her have her glasses.

A metallic thud.

A chair appeared before her, sitting now in the direct light from the doorway. A large figure approached, leaning down to her and hauling her effortlessly to her feet and then pushing her hard down onto the chair. Her arms were pulled roughly behind her back, stretching her shoulder muscles, and clamped tightly together at the wrist. He stood behind her, waiting. She couldn't make out the corners of her cell.

Another Cylon's voice, decidedly female, was sugar sweet in her ear. "I'm going to let you in on something. When a Cylon is downloaded into a new body there is an opportunity to embrace a new life. It is a chance to cleanse oneself of the doubts, anxieties and prejudices that we carried in our old form. This is what New Caprica is for us. A new beginning, for humans and Cylons alike, a chance to coexist as equals under God. In peace." She ran a warm finger along the edge of Roslin's face. Roslin turned her head away from the sickening caress. "You were their leader and yet you have no vision. Will we always be slaves to you?"

"This is not co-existence it's an occu-" A solid fist snapped her head back with breathtaking force. The sheer surprise and resulting blast of adrenaline forced her fully awake. Somewhere in her jostled brain came the slightly amused realisation that it must have been a rhetorical question.

The voice again, harder to concentrate on then before they'd hit her, "This dream cannot be built in a day. We must allow for a transition, a period where trust can be nurtured and allowed to grow"

"And this is trust," she jerked her head backwards towards her bound hands. She could feel her face swelling where the Cylon's fist had collided with it. The second blow was as shocking as the first. A middle aged woman, she'd never been hit like this before. None of her lovers had been abusive and she had no taste for sports. She felt a small metallic lump in her mouth along with the coppery tang of blood. She spat it out, realising it was a filling. When she could open her eyes again and look into the blur her mind spoke: _I get it, don't talk_.

Pain was flowing through her in slow waves now, but in an odd way it was comforting. During her illness she had dealt with chronic pain. She had learned to turn it into strength; to feed off it's energy as it stole hers.

"God tells us that the weeds must be rooted out and trampled for the harvest to be fruitful. You murder us in the streets, destroy our buildings and diminish our supplies. The resistance must end. We need their names, " she held Roslin's chin gently, oblivious to the warm blood that slid over her hand. She could feel the former President's body shaking and revelled in it. "Names, now"

Roslin simply resumed her breathing exercises. She found their faces in her mind. Colin, a blond boy with freckles and an adorable lisp, Toryn, all brown curls and smiles .. Karin .. blows came quickly and often .. Tomas … , the final one toppled the chair. There was pain, white hot and sharp, and a sickening pop as the weight of her body and the chair came down on her shoulder. The Cylon let her lie there in agony for several minutes before he released the restraints on her arms, pulling a scream from her mouth as her now useless arm shifted.

"Fix it," the female Cylon indicated to another Cylon and turned on her heel and left the room. This male knelt and ran his fingers along the bones of her ruined shoulder. Satisfied he indicated to another Cylon who helped him roll her onto her back. He held her still and roughly pulled her good arm away from the injured one. She screamed, fireworks exploding behind her eyes, as the other Cylon flexed her injured arm and twisted the shoulder back into place. She lost herself willingly in the blackness that had swum into her vision.

The human woman beneath him went slack and he dropped her arm to the floor.

They came every forty five minutes, never letting her sleep though she doubted the pain would have allowed it anyway. Her shoulder was swollen and numb, the arm too sore to even move. The same questions, the same trade. Names to end the pain.

Galactica today 0240

The end of a long shift had hit Adama hard. Age and recent life saving operations had sapped the strength he had never realized he would one day be without. Sixty one year old Admirals didn't command fleets. They sat at desks, took vacations and taught the young . He perused the reports in his hand as he made his way to his quarters, automatically returning the salutes of the officers he passed.

"Sir?" Gaeta. Not someone he wanted to see right now. He didn't want anyone between him and his rack. Especially not someone as energetic as Gaeta.

"Yes, lieutenant," he slowed his pace as he passed the young man but didn't stop, forcing Gaeta to follow him.

"Additions to your schedule for tomorrow, Sir," Gaeta handed him yet another corner less paper. Adama scowled at it.

"The Quorum .. why?" He hated dealing with the Quorum, hated leaving the orderly discipline of his military world. But, there was always a chance he would see Laura…

"Can't put them off forever, Sir," Gaeta replied as if reading his mind.

"Very well, carry on." Gaeta saluted crisply and Adama slowly returned it.

He checked his crono. Too late to talk to Laura tonight. _Frakkin' Quorum ... _he cursed to himself as he spun the hatch to his quarters. He threw back the door and stepped into complete darkness.

"Don't move, Admiral." A female voice. Off to his left. The darkness was consuming so he held his ground. The floor was not covered by the aged carpet of his quarters but, instead, was cold, flat concrete.

"What the hell is this?" he barked, venom in his voice.

"There are many ways that Cylons differ from humans. Many ways." the voice was still to his left and decidedly out of reach. "I brought you here"

"Where the frak is here?" He heard another noise, quiet this time and to his right. There was a door nearby and a sliver of light that did nothing to give him any bearings. As his eyes began to adjust he thought he saw bare feet on the floor to his right. They shook with the rest of the body that must have been there.

"She can't see you. Or hear you." The Cylon brushed against his side. He reached out to grab hold of her and found himself pinned with his face pressed roughly into the intersection of two flat concrete walls, the cool touch of loaded weapon behind his neck. She turned him with a strength far beyond human.

Suddenly the door flung open and he watched a familiar form slip backward along the floor. _Laura! Here? Why?_ She looked different. Her hair was longer, her clothes unfamiliar.

Three Cylons entered the room: a Godfrey, a Leoben, and a Simon. Leoben slammed a metal chair onto the floor and hauled Laura Roslin into it. Adama watched startled as her face registered a wince as Leoben secured her arms behind her back.

"This isn't real," he growled, straining against her confining grip.

The Godfrey Cylon was talking into Laura's ear. Leoben stood just behind and to her left. She went to make a reply when Leoben turned and struck Laura's face.

Adama's whole body stiffened against his captor.

"She can't hear you; no one here can, except me." was the unaffected response. "As for whether this is real…go ahead, pick it up"

Leoben had hit Laura again and he watched anguished as she spat something out of her mouth. A tooth? The Cylon let him go, cocking her weapon loudly. No one in the room reacted to his presence.

There was something small sitting in a pool of dark blood by his foot. He bent to pick it up ... _a filling?_ ... registering it's slick weight in his hand. He heard Leoben begin to rain punches onto Laura's head and body. Angered, he came up quickly, hoping to catch his captor by surprise.

There was a loud crash. Laura screamed.

Adama turned towards her and the Cylon grabbed hold of him again.

The former President of the Twelve Colonies was writhing in pain, still attached to the overturned chair. Her cries were heartbreaking.

The Cylons just watched.

And waited.

Leoben looked almost pleased.

Adama watched in horror as the Simon Cylon turned Laura over, and with Leoben's help jammed her obviously dislocated shoulder back into place. Simon dropped her arm and she made no more sound.

"This is New Caprica. About forty seven days ago. I was there and so now, you can be there," the female voice again, in his ear. "She didn't give us any choice. You, however, have one"

He didn't react.

"We need the location of Earth"

He said nothing.

"Kobol. The Tomb of Athena. The map to Earth. We know you found it." The Cylon spoke at not much more than a whisper. "You can tell us or we will find her and we will do this again until she tells us."

"Give you the location of Earth," Adama said finally. "So you can finish the job"

"We want to go home"

"You can go to hell."

And for Adama, as it had been for this Six, the experience ended.

New Caprica Holding Facility  
46 days ago

A foul smell beneath her nose, Roslin jerked awake. For some reason, her brain still wading in sleep or coma, she forgot herself and tried to stand. Searing pain exploded from just about everywhere. Leoben caught her and put her back in the chair. They continued to ask for names. She was nauseous. Disoriented. It hurt to breathe.

As quickly as they came they left her again, face pressed to the freezing floor. But for some reason she wasn't cold. _You're in shock_ … but she could almost feel something. For the first time since she had found herself in this cell, she didn't feel alone. _Sure, now you're losing your mind_. Her head lolled and she fell into vision:

_Submersion.  
Liquid cold flowing over every nerve ending in her body.  
Pain dulls.  
Senses mute.  
The loud cacophony of her entry into the freezing water transforms into a numb rumble that marks her descent. A thin stream of bubbles rise around her.  
She can breathe.  
Her chest aches and her lungs throb from the weight of the water but with effort she can breathe.  
Serpent like tendrils of her red hair float like an aura about her. She tilts her head up to where the muted sphere of the sun flickers lazily over the waters surface. She treads against her descent, her legs and left arm pushing against the murky liquid and succeeding in ebbing her fall. Her right arm hangs limp.  
Sudden movement in the shimmering disk above catches her eye. Two elegant serpents, one sapphire, one scarlet, twist through intricate spirals, slipping over and around each other with intoxicating grace. Long s-shaped currents form behind them combining in even patterns of light and dark._

Back to the pain. A solid floor beneath her and only a finger of light to stab at the darkness. Her eyes rolled and shut once again as she descended back into vision.

_A sound, dulled by the water around her, pulls her eyes from the dancing snakes.  
It was crying.  
A baby was crying. Blindly, she treaded toward the sound.br There she is.  
An infant, born premature and no more than a few days old, is floating in a shaft of light that somehow penetrates the water's gloom. Her good arm reaches for the child, fingertips barely grazing brand new skin. Slowly the baby slips from her reach, descending away from the light. She panics, groping, cursing her useless arm.  
She gasps then as the water warms and seems to clear molecule by molecule. There was the baby.  
Calm.  
Cradled in the crook of an aged yet well muscled arm. His nearness is startling but she is soon overwhelmed with the sensation of warmth, as internal as it is external, as his other arm slips around her and up the skin of her back. He pulls her into his bare, bullet scarred chest, the baby's tiny form nestled between his skin and hers. Cradling her body and the baby's he begins a gentle ascent. He is saying something to her and she studies the familiar rough lines on his face, the intensity of certainty in the deep blue of his gaze. They are approaching the surface. She would hear him then. She looks upward to find a starry nebula where she expects to see the sun. Twelve familiar constellations decorate the sky around it. Soft pinks and purples swirl among the twinkling stars of the constellation Scorpio. The lagoon nebula, her brain provides, the first signpost on the path to Earth.  
An echoing crash as they break water.  
"Hera - "_

Cool air on her face Rough hands under her arms.  
Panic.  
Dizzying pain as her body was flung back into the chair.  
"Names, now." Female voice. Sugar sweet.

She'd stopped counting. Her brain felt like mush, her senses were frakked. Mostly, she just cried.

continued in part 2


	2. Part 2 Mind Frak

Galactica 0300

As quickly as it had begun, it was over. Suddenly back in his office, Adama's military training kicked in automatically. He scanned the room for his Cylon captor, reaching for his personal sidearm and relishing its weight in his hand. His emotions he silently stored away, burying them behind his set jaw and icy glare. War was horror and if you couldn't find a place for it and do your job you were no soldier. His quarters were not large and he soon felt anger rising as he found that the subject of his pursuit was no longer in the room. If she ever was. He slammed his fist against the wall beside his comm phone, jarring it out of its cradle.

"Umm…sir?" the deck officer's voice sounded uncertain when Adama finally managed to maneuver the phone to his ear.

"Get me Colonel Tigh," he growled his voice thick and dry.

"Yes, sir."

The next voice he heard was Saul's: "Yes, Admiral."

"I need Starbuck and a unit of marines at my quarters. Now."

"Is the situation secure?" There was an edge of worry in his XO's voice. _Getting old, Saul_.

"For now. That Godfrey Cylon's been here again. I need another full sweep of the ship."

"Son of a bitch." Tigh turned from the eyes of the officers in CIC. "What was she after this time?"

"Later, Colonel, just get me Kara and those marines, then contact Colonial One. I have to speak with the President." There was an almost undetectable hitch in his voice when he used her title. He hoped Saul had missed it but the man had known him far too long.

"Yes, sir." To Adama his voice became questioning but it was fleeting as he heard Saul begin to bark commands. He replaced the phone.

Kara Thrace must have double timed it as her blond head came around the corner sooner than he'd expected. Her weapon was drawn, as were those of the marines that flanked her. They fanned out into the corridor to either side of his quarters. He heard their clipped voices:

"Clear."

"Clear."

Kara couldn't keep her concern completely out of her voice. "Are your quarters secure, sir?" she asked, glancing past him into the room. He caught her scanning his body for injury before she met his eyes. _She can read me. She can gods damn read me._ He knew that Kara had suffered greatly in her life and decided not to be surprised that she could see it in him.

"Secure. Captain, organise the marines and search every corner of this ship. You're looking for the Godfrey Cylon model. She's armed." He kept his voice slow and steady. "Secure all outbound ships and issue parking orders for any ship that's left Galactica in the last hour. I want them boarded and searched. Re-deploy the CAP if necessary." His glare dared her to answer with anything but 'yes, sir.' She didn't hesitate.

"Yes, sir." She gestured sharply to her marines and moved quickly out of sight. Kara might have been able to see his heart but she knew which battle to fight. Most of the time. He picked up the phone again.

"Colonel?' he asked, a little too much exasperation in his voice.

"Colonial One responding, sir" came Saul's perpetually pissed off voice. "Raptor 269 prepping in bay 4."

"Thank you, Saul," he said quietly, hanging up before the man could react.

New Caprica Holding Complex  
45 days ago

The cell door opened carefully this time, light slipping across the room in a slow, careful arc. A solitary figure entered the room, pausing to reacclimate to the lack of light and the decidedly human odour in the room. She was lying on her side at his feet, body curled tightly in fetal position. As his eyes adjusted he could see the blood on her face, her hands and the floor. He looked at the matching stains on his own hands and regretted not cleansing them beforehand.

She didn't seem to be aware of him until he knelt beside her, reaching to sweep the damp and tangled mess of her hair from her face.

"Mmm," the small noise didn't seem to be directed at him but he continued to stroke her hair gently. 'Bill?" it had to hurt her to say the word around her swollen mouth and it didn't take his highly advanced internal database to know that the Bill in question was Admiral Adama. The same man who'd beaten him to a pulp on Ragnar. Angered, he brought his lips to her ear and quietly but firmly said

"No."

A sharp intake of breath and then the sight of her trying to move away from him, trailing a useless arm and smearing the blood on the floor. He put a hand on her bare foot as it receded but didn't grasp.

It was cold.

"Don't go," he said quietly. She pulled her foot away and kept up the agonizing motion, stopping only when she made contact with the wall. "Tell the truth and you'll live. That's what you told me." He raised his voice, trying to find her eyes. "No airlocks here, Madam President," he mocked, easily closing the distance between them.

"Leoben," another painful word.

"God's prophet, Laura Roslin," he tipped his head in mock salute and flashed a smile. "You've read Pythia?" he leaned towards her, trying to catch the gaze of her one eye that wasn't swollen shut. She pressed back against the wall trying to put some distance between them. Her eye found his and he found himself caught in its depth. So much so, he was startled by the crack of her left fist against the side of his skull. Shaking his head clear he grabbed the offending hand and held it down.

"I'll tell you the truth. You're going to die." He almost smiled.

"Everyone dies, Leoben. Every human, dies." Her voice was a ruined whisper.

He held up a single finger. "But you've cheated." He turned his attention to his hand in front of her, studying the dark bloodstains that were undeniably hers. "If I didn't know better, I would say you were the Cylon"  
He brought his eyes back to hers. "Pythia's leader dies horribly, never having seen the promised land. Soon, the stream will run red with your blood. But," he gently slipped his hand around her neck. "I can spare you that death. We can do it now." He tightened his grip. She struggled but her good arm remained pinned. "It doesn't say how you die." He adjusted his grip on her, feeling the cords of muscle in her neck slide beneath his palm. "At the hands of a Cylon on a mysterious, hidden planet?" He leaned in and put his lips against her ear. "It's almost romantic."

"Frak off," she managed, rapidly running out of oxygen.

He ignored her. "This begs the question: Where does your soul go when I'm finished? I know God has given you visions. I have them too. And I know you can do this."

He loosened his grip slightly and they were:

_Floating.  
Spinning head over heals in the dizzying emptiness of space. Pushed away by a current of air from a now empty airlock. _

Resting.  
Sitting under a rain soaked canopy on Kobol. Rich green foliage surrounding them, a thick musky odour in the air.

Submerged.  
Achingly cold water surrounding her once again except instead of the child, Leoben in front of her, a fine blond halo of hair around his head. Adama's arm, wrapping around his neck …

Then the shock of the cold cell.

"Where does your soul go? Human gods? Cylon God? Is there a difference?" he asked. "Pythia will be disappointed, I think." He slipped his hand from her neck, sliding it slowly over her now cancer free breast and downward. She twisted her hips away from him as his hand settled low on her abdomen. His eyes followed his hand. "The womb isn't the only way into this world. Mechanical, chemical beings, are they lesser in the eyes of God because they weren't born? Were we denied souls? When we finally die, where do they go?"

"Go to hell," she rasped, her breathing shallow, her heart pounding out a dizzying beat. She knew where this was heading as he worked his thigh between her legs, shifting his body weight onto her. She panicked, shaking with the realization that she wouldn't be able to stop him.

When she kicked at him he moved his hand to her injured arm and pulled on it. She screamed and her legs stilled. He put his body across hers, the pressure constricted her breathing and lit fiery pain across her already battered ribs.

"The others decided I should rape you," he whispered into her ear. She turned her head away and screamed. He rode waves of panic so strong he could feel them from her. "I won't. It's not that I don't want to," he pressed his arousal against her abdomen. "It's not that you're special. You see, I don't want to be human. The others don't always understand this. I want to be better than human as is the Cylon destiny. I will not turn a gift from God into a weapon as the others would have me do. However for appearances," he jammed his knee hard into her twice before shifting off of her. He backed off slowly, enjoying the smell of her fear, the sight of her tears.

Revenge was sweet indeed.

Still, he felt he should offer her something or perhaps he just didn't want the fun to end.

"I know you, Laura Roslin," he said quietly, standing by the door. "You're the woman who never learned to truly love until her worlds fell apart. There's so much death around you. Everything you love dies so you choose not to love. You have empty affairs, nights spent serving the primal need for sex, but no passion and never love. No family left. No children. Then comes the end of the worlds and God finds you through the prophet Pythia. And you listen. You accept Him, become His prophet and His instrument, and for the first time you allow yourself to truly love. Even though you know he'll die too. Or will he? Maybe you love him because you know he can't die." He waited, listening, but could hear only her laboured breathing. "Because he's one of us."

Continued in part 3


	3. Part 3 RevelationsClarity

When she came around again, the door was open. This time there was no chair. Clutching her legs to her chest she scanned the room for the Cylon that surely lay in wait. Seeing no one, she dropped her head to her knees and tried to breathe.

_Please. Just end it. Please._

When nothing was forthcoming she decided to make her way along the floor towards the opening, certain that deceit and further torment awaited her in the hallway. She was startled to find a body outside the door. Leoben. His head was lying in a pool of blood. She heard footsteps approaching quickly and she panicked, curling her body around her injured arm. She lifted her other arm in a feeble attempt to protect her head.

No blows came.

A gentle hand lit on her good shoulder.

A masked human, armed with an automatic rifle, had appeared at the door. When her head lifted and her eye met his, he knelt. He pressed two fingers to his head in a gesture she recognised as one of worship before he asked: "Can you walk?" He pressed her glasses into her left hand.  
"If it's out of here, then yes" she rasped with a confidence she didn't remotely feel.

She did remember walking, about the length of the hallway. Cylon bodies were everywhere. They met three other masked humans at the end of the hall, all of whom also knelt briefly. She struggled to remember where this had happened before but the cloud of pain was too thick. She'd stumbled, exhausted, and they must have carried her as the next thing she knew was that she had never been happier to see Saul Tigh.

Colonial One. 0345

He stood there, suddenly uncertain at the sight of her. Unmarred.

Whole.

Beautiful.

The raptor flight had been a test of his control. The immediate threat over, his mind threatened to overwhelm him with sounds and images of her from that cell. He focussed instead on the day that he'd brought them all home from New Caprica. He'd caught sight of her as she exited her shuttle and they had shared a very public embrace. But then, so had everyone. He had relished the warmth and softness of her body and the scent he had been sure he would never inhale again. She had buried her face in his neck, placing a kiss there hidden from the on looking throng of humanity.

Yet, even this memory turned dark.

As he remembered now, she had gripped him fiercely but only with her left arm. Her right hand had settled weakly at his waist. He'd been too euphoric to notice then, too high on the success of the mission.

Now as he looked at her he could see it. Damn it he could see it. Shoulders not quite even. A cheekbone that just didn't look quite right.  
"You're scaring me," she said simply, honestly, hoping to shake him out of his funk. He hadn't realised how long he'd been standing there. "You certainly didn't wake me up at this hour to stare at me."

He raised an eyebrow, eyes now focussed somewhere by his hands. "I was thinking about Admiral Cain," he said slowly. "About what Kara said."

He didn't elaborate. He just waited.

Admiral Cain. Hearing the woman's name sent a brief chill down her spine. She studied Adama's face as if Kara's words were to be found there.

_I believe we were safer with her than we are without_. Right.  
Wrong.

"She was dangerous." Her voice was a stern half-whisper, her eyes narrow.

He shifted on his feet and met her eyes for the first time.

"She would never have allowed for New Caprica." His voice was heavy with regret. "She would never have let her guard down. Never stopped fighting," until she crushed the CPU of the last remaining Cylon under her boot.

"You're right,' she said quietly. She had more to say but she let him marinade in that for a while. Then -

"And you, Colonel Tigh and your son would be dead. The civilian population would have been abandoned on New Caprica or Gods know where in space, ships stripped for supplies and personnel.' She pressed a hand to her chest. "And my body wouldn't have grown cold before she would have happily declared martial law."

His eyebrows creased and she caught a sudden slight twitch of his cheek. From Adama, it was the equivalent of a girly gasp of shock. It was gone in an instant and his already cold glare hardened. "You don't know that," he grumbled.

She smiled then, a soft hiss of amusement escaping her nose.. "No, but then why should you get to do all the speculating?" He didn't smile as she'd hoped. She felt a distance between them that she could only bridge half way. He just left her there, waiting.

There was more to this, something more personal than this guilt over his supposed failure to the fleet. She just wished she didn't have to work so hard to drag it out.

"Excuse me, Madam President, Admiral,' Tory entered the room trailing fresh air. "There's a call for the Admiral"

He was out the door quickly enough that escape would have been a good word to describe the action. She could hear his voice clearly.

"Sit. Rep." There was a long pause.

"Keep looking." The receiver hit the cradle with bone-jarring force.

"What's going on?" she asked sharply when he returned.

"We had an incident on Galactica. It's being handled"

_Galactica. Right. Your turf, not mine_.

Gods he wanted to touch her. She was right in front of him but she might as well have been on New Caprica for how close he felt at this moment. What he had seen in her cell had been horrible but it was also firmly in the past. Did he have any right to put her through it again just because he knew?

"This isn't about Cain," her voice interrupted his thoughts. She had moved to sit behind her desk, arms folded across her breasts. "Is it"  
A pause. She was pushing now and she knew exactly where. _Politicians_.

"No," he admitted gruffly.

His eyes dropped immediately to his hands which were clasped almost too tightly in front of his body. She watched, curiosity peaked, as he took a few steps towards her, hand reaching to pull something from the pocket of his duty uniform. Whatever it was, was tiny, making a light "plink" as he set it in front of her on the desk. She reached for her glasses and the object at the same time. It took a full minute for her mind to register what it was.

A filling. Her filling.

She dropped it as if it had stung her and he watched her other hand press lightly against the edge of the desk. Unconsciously, she pushed herself back from it, a wince crossing her features. "Where - " she breathed. She tried to settle her nerves as her tongue probed at the empty space in her mouth, where they'd had to pull the tooth.

So he knew.

_Damn_.

She was so tired of weakness. She didn't want him to look at her and see a victim of torture or a willowy husk ravaged by disease. Gods, he'd already seen the latter. She wanted him to see an equal, a woman who loved him for exactly who and what he was.

_A Cylon_? her brain provided all too quickly.

Never.

The thought cracked a feeble barrier in her mind. Images assaulted her in a vivid, random flood.

_A cold metallic chair.  
A baby crying.  
"You're going to die"  
Repeated waking to the taste of her own blood.  
Leoben's thigh against her sex, his body across hers.  
"You murder us in the streets "  
A sickening pop and a flood of agony.  
Consuming, penetrating liquid cold.  
Clouded vision, a hand like a vice around her neck.  
"Names, now"  
A woman's gentle hand, cupping her chin.  
A solid fist against her jaw, a metallic lump in her mouth.  
Two serpents, twisting in the watery, rippled haze of the sun.  
A warm hand gliding over the skin of her back, heat flooding her very core.  
"… to truly love … he'll die too."_

Her body was shaking enough to rattle the chair. He was around the desk in seconds, warm hands steadying her shoulders, quieting the insolent chair. She recovered quickly, moving up and away from him, shaking off his hands.

"Where did you get that?" she gestured weakly at the filling. Her voice was frayed but still functional.

_In a puddle of blood on the floor of your cell_. "I don't really understand, " he began staying close to her without making any contact. "I opened the hatch to my quarters and I ended up in your cell with the Godfrey cylon." "The incident on Galactica."

She looked to him like she was going to be sick. "She asked all the questions."

He kept his voice steady and calm as it seemed to have a calming effect on her. "I know." Her hand was unsteady as it rose to lightly cover her mouth. "She said the Cylons were different. Some ability allowed her to access and display what must have been a part of her memory." He paused, thinking. "She had me pick up your filling to prove the environment was real but I had no way to effect it"

"Too bad.' He wasn't even really sure he'd heard that. She'd turned away from him.

"Your shoulder looks sore." He wanted to give her confirmation while still trying to be comforting.

"It's better than it was." Can't lift my arm past shoulder level. As violated as she felt by the knowledge that he had somehow witnessed her ordeal, she was comforted by it all the same. When she'd reached the settlement, Cottle had told her that the Cylon had successfully reduced her shoulder but that he suspected a fracture. He couldn't feel any displacement so he'd put her arm in a sling and left her with some expired painkillers and a list of exercises. Time reduced swelling and faded bruises, and she soon found herself busy, the exercises and lingering pain easily ignored. When her shuttle landed on Galactica, she had left the sling behind. It had angered Cottle but she knew Adama would have wanted to know what happened and she would have had to tell him about …

_I have to ask_. Fear stabbed yet another hole in her heart and constricted her lungs and throat. She really didn't know how much he had seen. She had never planned on telling him.

He just stood, watching as tension rolled across the muscles of her back, and gave her time.

Finally she got angry. The Cylons had tried to break her with fear, had given it form and surrounded her with its smell and taste.

No longer.

These tactics would never work against a woman with no fear of death.

And Bill Adama? She was definitely not afraid of him.

Her back straightened and she turned to face him. Something hardened behind her eyes. "Did you see Leoben?" she asked finally. He could literally feel the exertion that was keeping her voice steady and her body taut.

"Yes,' he paused gathering his own strength. "He was the strong arm"

She paled visibly. "After that."

_After_? The words hit him like a towel-wrapped bar of soap to the abdomen. He had never considered that he hadn't seen everything. He started putting pieces together in his mind. The distance that had opened between them since that fleeting embrace on the hanger deck. The way she struggled to hold herself together in front of him now. _And she's uncomfortable with my touch in a way she's never been before._

Leoben.

The conclusion he drew only served to break his heart and send such a feeling of rage through his body that he feared it was visible to her. _Gods._ He walked slowly past her, trying to rein in his emotions while his face was turned. He sat down on her couch, not sure he wanted to be standing for the answer to his next question. Taking a sharp drag of air through his nose, he asked "He didn't - '

Rape you.

He couldn't say the words. Couldn't say them because he was holding on to a memory. They had explored something on New Caprica. Something that as Admiral of the Fleet and President of the Colonies wasn't even a possibility. He had been gentle, it had been a long time for both of them, their lovemaking sweet confirmation of what had resonated between them for more than a year. He remembered every touch, every taste as if they occurred minutes not months ago. The mere thought of Leoben -

"No," she said quietly. "It never got that far." She didn't have to tell him how close it was or why Leoben stopped. So Adama hadn't seen everything. His concern washed over her and she opted for the truth. "He was having more fun frakking with my mind"

He should have felt more relief as the breath he was holding left him in a rush. "Frak Leoben. I wouldn't give anything he said an ounce of credence," he snapped, a hint of command in his voice.

"He knows about the prophecies of Pythia. Senses that my continued survival has something to do with the Cylons." _I know you, Laura Roslin._. "He got into my head, Bill," she confessed openly.

"Let it go"

He found her eyes and as much as dared her to look away. "You have to let him go. That model is insidious. He plants seeds in your head. You have to let them go or before you know it you'll be overrun. He's just one more weapon the Cylons have." A gun without a barrel or trigger

He was quiet then and she could almost feel him sinking into the pit of guilt he seemed to find so comforting lately. She waited. She had learned, through time and intimacy, that Bill Adama did have a lot to say. You just had to be willing to wait. Or, she thought back to better days on New Caprica, give him the time to show you.

"I'm sorry, Laura," his voice was a low rumble, his gaze dark. "I was tired. I wanted to believe that we were safe. Convincing you to hand the election back to Baltar was probably the second worst command decision I've ever made. If I had been an Admiral that day, Leoben would never have touched you." He matched her confession, eyes stinging with regret. He made mistakes and she, and so many others, paid for them. He would not hide from what he had done.

"No, Bill. I'm no victim here." She looked at him earnestly, dropping her hands and finally relaxing. "I chose to lead the resistance, told lies, stashed weapons. I did what had to be done and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. You didn't put me in a cell with a bunch of Cylons, I did." Clarity. It had taken a military coup, a planetary occupation and plenty of knocks to the head but she had it now. Clarity. She sat down beside him on the sofa, not touching but close enough to catch his scent between them. "I had time in that cell. Time to think." To have a vision. "This war is horror. That we are the remnant of billions of lives is an unfathomable weight on those of us that survived. But if I can be selfish, for just this moment, then this war has given me my life"

He was transfixed. Lost in her words, in her steady gaze, in her nearness.

"If the Cylons had never attacked then I would have died a senseless, lonely death on Caprica." Her voice was steady, her body calm. "If Karl Agathon hadn't fallen in love with a Cylon whose programmed so perfectly human and who bore his child, then I would have died on Galactica, leaving you alone with this terrible burden." She pauses, images from her vision sliding across her minds eye. Hera's role was yet to unfold and for now, beyond her control. She is overwhelmed by another current that permeates the fabric of the vision.

_I am not alone.  
The burden is shared. Two serpents dance the same dance.  
I will not be afraid to find comfort here._

She reached over and slipped her hand underneath his, gently lacing their fingers. They made a beautiful pattern, light and dark. He closed his eyes briefly at the welcome warmth of her touch.

"But I'm still here. My life now is a gift. From the Gods? The Cylons?" She sighed. "I don't know. I just know that I'm not afraid anymore. Pythia or not, death or not, I will expend every last bit of the life that's been given me to bring these people home." Tears prickled at the corners of her eyes, his dark gaze a mirror image.

Gently, he pulled on the hand in his grasp and she offered no resistance, settling against his shoulder as if she had never left it. "We all have to follow the path that's laid out for us," she felt the words through the warmth of his chest. "But we don't always have to walk alone. The Gods lift those who lift each other." His voice was rough, heavy with the emotion he'd spent the day burying. The images in his head would not soon go away. But he had his answer. He would never give the Cylons even a hint of Earth. Even if it killed her. And maybe, in time, she could teach him to let go of his fear.

She reached up to touch his face and found a wetness there that he made no move to hide. And then she smiled. And she was whole.

And beautiful.

And his.

He kissed a tear from her cheek before she settled back against his chest, warm in the comfort of his arms.

"New Caprica was a mistake," she said quietly, her breath warm on his neck. "But I can't help it, sometimes, I wish we had just one more minute there." His arms tightened and she felt him smile into her hair. He gestured to the tiny windows dotting the cabin of Colonial One.

"We still have plenty of stars."

Fin.

Thanks for reading my first BSG story! Comments are very appreciated


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